By Greg Allan, tradesman and creator of Data First Coaching
Why do most business coaches never find the real problem in an air conditioning business?
Most business coaches sell confidence and generic KPIs rather than an understanding of how an HVAC technician actually makes or loses money. They run the same benchmarks across every trade, so nothing in their advice is shaped around refrigerant costs, equipment lead times, or the margin difference between a split system install and a ducted job.
A trade business coach who has never run crews through a summer install peak or chased a debtor through a winter lull is working from theory, not from the business in front of them. What looks like a cash problem to an aircon owner is often a symptom. The real cause can sit in supplier payment terms, warranty callback costs, or debtor days on commercial maintenance contracts that nobody has been tracking properly. A coach who starts with motivation instead of the numbers will never reach that root cause.
What goes wrong when an HVAC business owner picks a coach on personality or price per session?
An owner who chooses a coach because they are likeable or because the session rate is low risks paying for advice that never touches the actual problem. The business can look profitable on paper, good margins on split system installs, a full quote book, steady service agreements, while the bank account runs dry underneath it.
That gap between the profit and loss and the bank balance is common in HVAC businesses carrying commercial maintenance contracts with slow payment terms, rising supplier costs on equipment and refrigerant, and overhead from licensing, compliance and vehicle running costs that nobody has pulled apart by job type. A coach picked on personality alone has no way of seeing any of that, because they never asked to see it.
What should you ask a coach before you sign up?
Ask a prospective coach whether they start by looking at your numbers or by pitching you a program. The answer tells you almost everything. A coach worth choosing asks questions about your actual cost structure and your situation rather than handing you a worksheet built for every trade at once.
Greg Allan's own approach to leading a team is to ask what they think the solution is, rather than issuing directives from a distance. That is the standard worth holding a coach to as well. Ask what they would want to see from your own job costing and your margin by job type before they offer an opinion. Ask whether they default to “hire someone” every time a problem comes up, because that is rarely the actual fix. Ask how they would separate a debtor days problem from a pricing problem, since the two feel the same in the bank account but are solved completely differently.
What does a coach who reads your numbers actually look at first?
The one number every HVAC technician needs to know cold is gross profit margin, and a coach worth paying will ask for it broken down by job type before they say anything else. Margin on a straightforward split system install looks nothing like margin on a ducted retrofit or a commercial maintenance contract, and lumping them together hides where the money actually goes.
From there, a good coach looks at the gap between what the profit and loss shows and what is in the bank: debtor days on commercial accounts, supplier payment terms on equipment and parts, and overhead that quietly grows with every added vehicle, tool or licence renewal. This is data first coaching: starting from your own numbers rather than your memory of how the quarter felt, because the numbers change every week and memory does not.
This is also where AI agents change what is possible. An AI agent is software that does a job the way you would, with your own prices, wording and rules. Instead of an office admin or the owner manually chasing supplier invoices or tracking debtor days across every maintenance contract, an agent can sit in that exact spot and flag the gap before it becomes a cash problem. That frees the people in the business to spend their time on customers and the crew, not on chasing numbers nobody has time to check.
How does a good coach help you grow beyond aircon installs and service?
Once your core operation is solid, margin understood, debtor days under control, a good coach should help you see growth you had not considered yourself. That might mean looking at adjacent trade work alongside your aircon installs and service agreements, bought in at wholesale rates rather than built from scratch.
Judge a coach on whether they can open up that kind of thinking for your specific business, not whether they hand you the same expansion playbook they give every client. An HVAC technician running ducted systems and commercial contracts has a different path open to them than one running mostly residential split system installs, and a coach worth paying can tell the difference.
What are the warning signs of the wrong coach for your business?
The clearest warning sign is a coach who behaves like a salesperson first, pushing you to sign before they have asked a single question about your numbers. Another is a coach who has never run a trade business themselves and offers advice that reads the same for a plumber, an electrician and an HVAC technician.
Watch for advice that answers every problem with “hire someone” without first asking whether the real issue is pricing, debtor days or an overloaded job type. And watch for benchmarks presented as universal truths, since what counts as healthy margin on a commercial maintenance contract is not the same as on a one-off split system install.
How does Data First Coaching approach this?
Data First Coaching, built by Greg Allan, starts from the HVAC business's own numbers through the Trade Business Intelligence rather than from the owner explaining their business from memory. It looks first at margin by job type, debtor days and the gap between the profit and loss and the bank account, because that is usually where the real problem starts, not where it shows up.
Greg has said, “The goal is to become a mentor for your team, for the academy,” and that mentoring extends to seeing growth an owner has not yet considered. The how of this work is taught inside the Academy, among members who are open minded, innovative and willing to share, because the Trade Business Intelligence is powered by every member, for every member.
Looking for a business coach who starts from your numbers? HVAC Business Coach or every answer for HVAC technicians.
